VERY religious teacher, if in earnest, will be a

EV proselytizer. In proportion as he holds his

opinions with a conscientious and intelligent grasp. must he desire to win men over to their acceptance; nor can his zeal be blamed provided only the ruinous spirit of strife and bigotry be avoided. And if he be not merely convinced of the importance of his message but wise in his method of spreading it, he will never be satisfied with merely impressing it in public upon the multitude around him, but will store it privately in a few choicer minds, that they may carry the doctrine, like freighted vessels, to distant shores. As there is no comparison for effectiveness between the single machine which prints so many sheets of paper or winds so many reels of silk in the hour and the steam engine which sets and keeps in motion a whole room full of such machines, so the man who seeks to do the largest amount of good will recognize that far higher results may be attained by instructing a few persons of influence who "shall be able to teach others also," than by working always

upon an inert mass, destitute of life and reproductive

energy.

Hence we find that all the world's greatest teachers have gathered around them disciples. Socrates frequented the market-place and gymnasia of Athens at their busiest hours, and was ready to talk with anybody and everybody; but there clustered about him a group of pupils and companions, whom he took pains to instruct in the esoteric parts of his system, because to them he looked for its preservation and propagation. Nor was his hope misplaced; for the thoughts of mankind were moulded and stamped in succeeding ages by the rough old Greek who through Plato and Aristotle his intellectual heirs exercised a widening power through many generations. Peter the Hermit inflaming Europe to the Crusades, Luther waving on the world against priestly craft and tyranny, Loyola the founder of the Society of Jesus, Savonarola at Florence with his Penitents, and in England the twin leaders of Methodism-these are examples of religious teachers, not in every case formally organizing disciples, but ever setting their followers to work, and through their labours reaching men of all lands and in days long after the watchfires of their own lives had died down.

This same principle was acknowledged by our Saviour to a remarkable degree. He deliberately chose out and summoned to his side as permanent associates twelve men, who at his bidding forsook their trade, left their homes and followed him through the scenes of his ministry, occasionally leaving him for a while to preach his word and prepare his way,

but anon returning to report their failures and successes, receive a fresh commission and learn his will more perfectly. Having taken upon him our nature, it was no derogation from his glory, but rather in complete agreement with his design, that he should employ for the diffusion of his gospel not the legions of trumpeting angels but the simple tongues of the men he had persuaded and enlisted; and, while exception is taken by some to the actual objects of his choice as men ill-suited to his purpose, a little attention will, it is hoped, suffice to show that in this, as in all other matters, his selection was guided by a wisdom above that of the world, and justified by the attainment of the ends in view.

But before going farther we are bound for a moment to consider the opinion held by many excellent persons jealous for the divine honour, that there is no need to defend our Lord's choice by such reasons of prudence as mankind in general possess for action, inasmuch as the divine resources are displayed to greatest advantage when associated with human feebleness; and that therefore he was likely to select his apostles, not so much from a view to their fitness for the work, as with a desire to magnify in them his transforming and energizing grace. Thus it has been maintained that "our Saviour made choice of twelve simple and unlettered men that the greater their lack of natural wisdom was, the more admirable that might appear which God supernaturally endowed them with from heaven." It is no doubt true, as St. Paul says, that "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,

"

and the weak to confound those which are mighty; for weak are the best earthly instruments for doing spiritual work, and only by inspiration from on high can they prove mighty to the pulling down of strongholds; but the apostle appears to fall far short of teaching that the foolish and weak are selected specially because of their folly and im-. potence. Oftentimes it may seem as though God chooses unfit instruments, when in the judgment of a wisdom that discards our shifting social standards they are the very fittest. If there be one lesson which the Old Testament impresses upon the mind of the reader more than another it is of the care which the divine Ruler has ever taken in preparing and polishing his tools, though often the event alone proved the previous skill. To outward appearance Gideon's host was weakened by its reduction, whereas we can now see that the dismissal of the timid and indolent really made it far more efficient and manageable.

And there were two reasons why this principle of careful adaptation of means to ends should not have been neglected by our Lord. He bore our nature in all but its sins, and therefore must have followed the general lines of human foresight; and as he lived for our ensample it is incredible that he should have shown a disregard of natural fitness in the means employed, which it is admitted no living man would be profited or even justified in displaying. Bearing then in mind that God chooses with care, but often sees fit to choose those very instruments which men would pronounce incompetent, we are willing to

believe that "it behoved Christ to select a number of men in whom the riches of His life might be unfolded in every direction. For this end He needed, above all things, people in whom the glory of His spirit and the peculiarity of His work might be distinctly identified; laymen who would not chain His work to existing priestly habits; unlearned men, who would not mix up His wisdom with traditional schemes of philosophy; yes, even comparatively uneducated men, at any rate homely men, in order that the dulled taste of a diseased worldly civilization might not disturb the culture which the Spirit of the image of Christ operating from within was to impart to them."

"I

If now we examine our Lord's choice of apostles from the human point of view-which in fact is the only side by which we feel able at all to approach it— we are disposed to reckon first amongst his motives the desire for sympathy. His nature was genial, he loved children, was easily affected by the sight of a great multitude or a great city; he had grown up among a wide circle of relations and seemed never happier than when enjoying the hospitalities of the family at Bethany. And if, notwithstanding his habit of solitary prayer, he rejoiced to feel human hearts beating true with his own, the character of the work he had come to do was such as to stimulate this yearning for sympathy. It was for him to tread the winepress alone, to be despised and rejected of men,

1 Lange, Life of Christ, vol. iii. p. 45.